Defensive Indifference

CC Sabathia did it again, throwing a complete game for the Brewers to run his record to 8-0 since coming over to the National League. He also threw 130 pitches, compiling that total despite Milwaukee’s comfortable lead in the game (it won 9-3).

This is ground I’ve covered here before, but I’d like to cover it again, and echo David Pinto’s sentiments over at Baseball Musings.

Major league pitchers have thrown more than 120 pitches in a game 49 times this season. Seven of those games have been pitched by Milwaukee Brewers. By my count, no other team has stretched its starting pitchers that far more than three times.

When I first complained about the way Ned Yost handled his pitching staff, a couple Brewers bloggers chided me for perhaps being a bit overprotective.

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Dustin Pedroia and Kevin Youkilis both homered Sunday in Boston’s 15-4 loss. That gives Pedroia 13 on the season and Youkilis 23. Considering both were billed as grinders who would get on base but not provide much power coming through the minors, it’s surprising to see them with a shot (albeit slim in Pedroia’s case) at 20 and 30 home runs, respectively.

The Red Sox have had plenty of players that scouts have loved lately, but I think it’s fair to say Youkilis and Pedroia don’t fall into that category, so I guess you can score one for the sabermetricians in their ongoing, bitter and completely non-existent blood feud with scouts. (We’re past all that, right?)

I’m more interested in where they rank in the wide open AL MVP race. Pedroia and Youkilis are No. 1 and No. 3 in the race for the batting title. Youkilis has a higher OBP and SLG than Josh Hamilton, while Pedroia has more home runs than every other second baseman in the AL besides Ian Kinsler and two fewer extra-base hits than Alex Rodriguez.

I don’t think either player is deserving of the award, but because of the way the BBWAA trims down the field (player must usually play for a contender and be strong in the Triple Crown categories), they’re in the group of eight or so players who seem like favorites at this juncture.

With no one running away with the race, either could win the MVP with a particularly strong finish.

A pitcher with lousy peripherals who seems to get by in the major leagues on smarts? No. But he does appear to be one of the more intellectual ballplayers around.

Says Anderson in an interview with Baseball Prospectus’ David Laurilia of his reading habits:

Reading is exercising a totally different part of the brain, and for me it’s kind of an outlet from baseball. I’ve rarely read books about baseball; I like to read stuff that transports me to places of different thought. Right now I’m reading 1984, and other books I’ve read recently are Watership Down and Lonesome Dove. Probably my favorite authors are Charles Frazier, who wrote Thirteen MoonsCold Mountain, and Barbara Kingsolver, who wrote The Bean Trees and Pigs in Heaven, which I thought was pretty inspirational. It’s amazing to see how creative these people are; what they have in their minds is amazing. People like Tolkien and Orwell created languages to suit the characters in their books, and they’re able to put in multiple stories and tie them together in a non-clichéd, blockbuster-movie kind of way. I think it’s really cool, just how poetic they can be without being cheesy. I just really enjoy reading, man. It’s totally a good way to stay centered.

The whole thing is worth reading, and hey, there’s reason to be excited about Lars Anderson the player too, especially these days. He put up good, though not awe-inspiring, numbers at High-A Lancaster earlier this year and he’s been even better since being promoted to Double-A Portland, posting a .364/.457/.636 line despite facing much tougher competition and moving out of a hitting paradise in Lancaster.

Tom Tango has an interesting plan for how to get on-base percentage to supplant batting average in the consciousness of your average American baseball fan.

And the school of OBP must start with Fantasy Baseball.  Why don’t the Fantasyers simply go with OBP over BA?  If they do that, they’ll overpower those who pray to the church of BA, and OBP will become mainstream.  After we settle that one, then we can figure out Palestine and Israel.

As someone who works in “the biz,” I often forget how powerful fantasy sports have become, but I think Tango is on the right track here — as far as on-base percentage has come this decade, rotisserie baseball might be the key to it replacing batting average as the hallmark rate statistic.

Think about it: baseball fans these days probably peruse statistics more for their fantasy team than for any other single reason. What’s more useful to your average fantasy baseball player — OBP or BA? The answer is so obvious, I don’t even have to say it. BA might be an inferior way of judging a baseball player in the real world, but Ichiro is going to do a lot more to help you win your standard 5×5 fantasy league than Brian Giles, even if Giles might be just as good or even better than Ichiro.

I’ve never understood why OBP isn’t the go-to stat now (though I can understand why the earliest statisticians tracked BA instead because of the way the game was played in the 19th century). Unlike some of the scarier-sounding sabermetric stats, it’s extremely accessible and provides a pretty clear picture of a player’s basic skillset.

But here we are anyway. Like Mr. Tango, I’m not optimistic that OBP will supplant BA in your standard Yahoo public league anytime soon, even if it should.

Barring an injury or some other “unusual occurence,” Orioles uber-prospect Matt Wieters will not get a September callup (subscription required), according to Roch Kubatko (formerly of the Baltimore Sun and now of MASN and Baseball America).

Wieters, the No. 4 overall draft pick in 2007, has torn through the minors this year, posting a 1.022 OPS at High-A Frederick and an even more absurd 1.119 OPS (.372 AVG/.470 OBP) at Double-A Bowie.

For selfish reasons, I’m a little bit bummed out by that news. Many people consider Wieters the top prospect in baseball right now, including yours truly, and as someone who sees the Orioles quite a bit, I was hoping to get a sneak peek of the catcher in person before his presumed full-season major league debut in 2009.

From a pure baseball perspective, I can’t criticize Andy MacPhail these days. He’s quickly turned the Orioles around. For the first time since I moved to the area seven years ago, there seems to be a subtle, but genuinely good feeling about the direction of the once-proud franchise.

I’m on record as not being a big fan of the Olympics. On some level, I just don’t understand why I’m supposed to give a crap about a bunch of sports every four years that don’t even register the rest of the time. Still, I find myself tuning in every night (especially because of the two TV setup in my living room).

I think it’s because I’m a sports junkie and on some level I get off on competition of any kind, but that’s neither here nor there. I was watching last night as the US 4×100 freestyle relay team showed the frogs where to put it, and I can honestly say that was one of the better sporting events I have seen in awhile.

As for Michael Phelps, well he’s in the same must-see territory as Tiger Woods at this point.

HT to With Leather for the video